The Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan[6] (Pashto: د افغانستان اسلامي امارات‎, Da Afghanistan Islami Amarat) was the state established in 1996 when the Taliban began their rule of Afghanistan and ended with their fall from power in 2001. Even at the peak of their influence, the Taliban did not control the entirety of Afghanistan, as about 10% of the country in the northeast was held by the Northern Alliance.[7]

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The Taliban and its rule arose from the chaos of post-Soviet Afghanistan. It began as an Islamic fundamentalist politico-religious movement composed of madrasa students in southern Afghanistan. Overwhelmingly ethnic Pashtuns, the Taliban blended Pashtunwali tribal code with elements of DeobandiIslamic teaching to form an anti-Western and anti-modern Islamic ideology with which it ruled.[8] It began to receive support from neighboring Pakistan as well as from Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates (UAE). In the meantime, countries like the United States and others were watching from a distance and hoping that this new movement would end the Afghan civil war.

The Taliban were perceived as being particularly brutal towards those they considered non-Afghans. Pashtun people comprised the vast majority of the Taliban movement. As the Taliban expanded from their southern and south-eastern strongholds, they encountered more resistance due to the fact that their brand of Deobandi Islam, incorporated with the pashtun tribal code of Pashtunwali, was alien to the other ethnic groups of Afghanistan.[9][10][11][12] The Battles of Mazar-i-Sharif (1997–98) where Taliban fighters killed between 8000-10,000 Hazaras and Uzbeks in response to 3000 executed Taliban fighters were a result of this ethnic tension.[13][14]

Spreading from Kandahar, the Taliban eventually seized Kabul in 1996. By the end of 2000, the Taliban were able to capture 90% of the country, aside from the opposition (Northern Alliance) strongholds primarily found in the northeast corner of Badakhshan Province. Areas under the Taliban's direct control were mainly Afghanistan's major cities and highways. Tribal khans and warlords had de facto direct control over various small towns, villages, and rural areas.[15] The Taliban sought to impose a strict interpretation of Islamic Sharia law upon the entire country of Afghanistan.

During the five-year history of the Islamic Emirate, much of the population experienced restrictions on their freedom and violations of their human rights. Women were banned from working, and girls were forbidden to attend schools or universities and were requested to observe purdah and to abstain from obscenities. Those who resisted were punished. Communists were systematically executed and thieves were punished by amputating one of their hands or feet. Meanwhile, the Taliban succeeded in nearly eradicating the majority of the opium production by 2001.[16]

Cabinet ministers and deputies were mullahs with a "madrasah education." Several of them, such as the Minister of Health and Governor of the State bank, were primarily military commanders who left their administrative posts to fight when needed. Military reverses that trapped them behind lines or led to their deaths increased the chaos in the national administration.[17] At the national level, "all senior Tajik, Uzbek and Hazara bureaucrats" were replaced "with Pashtuns, whether qualified or not." Consequently, the ministries "by and large ceased to function."[18]

Rashid described the Taliban government as "a secret society run by Kandaharis ... mysterious, secretive, and dictatorial."[19] They did not hold elections, as their spokesman explained:

The Sharia does not allow politics or political parties. That is why we give no salaries to officials or soldiers, just food, clothes, shoes, and weapons. We want to live a life like the Prophet lived 1400 years ago, and jihad is our right. We want to recreate the time of the Prophet, and we are only carrying out what the Afghan people have wanted for the past 14 years.[20]

They modeled their decision-making process on the Pashtun tribal council (jirga), together with what they believed to be the early Islamic model. Discussion was followed by a building of a consensus by the "believers".[21] Before capturing Kabul, there was talk of stepping aside once a government of "good Muslims" took power, and law and order were restored.

As the Taliban's power grew, decisions were made by Mullah Omar without consulting the jirga and without consulting other parts of the country. He visited the capital, Kabul, only twice while in power. Instead of an election, their leader's legitimacy came from an oath of allegiance ("Bay'ah"), in imitation of the Prophet and the first four Caliphs. On April 4, 1996, Mullah Omar had "the Cloak of the Prophet Mohammed" taken from its shrine for the first time in 60 years. Wrapping himself in the relic, he appeared on the roof of a building in the center of Kandahar while hundreds of Pashtun mullahs below shouted "Amir al-Mu'minin!" (Commander of the Faithful), in a pledge of support. Taliban spokesman Mullah Wakil explained:

Decisions are based on the advice of the Amir-ul Momineen. For us consultation is not necessary. We believe that this is in line with the Sharia. We abide by the Amir's view even if he alone takes this view. There will not be a head of state. Instead there will be an Amir al-Mu'minin. Mullah Omar will be the highest authority, and the government will not be able to implement any decision to which he does not agree. General elections are incompatible with Sharia and therefore we reject them.[22]

The Taliban were very reluctant to share power, and since their ranks were overwhelmingly Pashtun they ruled as overlords over the 60% of Afghans from other ethnic groups. In local government, such as Kabul city council[19] or Herat,[23] Taliban loyalists, not locals, dominated, even when the Pashto-speaking Taliban could not communicate with the roughly half of the population who spoke Dari or other non-Pashtun tongues.[23] Critics complained that this "lack of local representation in urban administration made the Taliban appear as an occupying force."[18]

One reason for lack of international recognition was the Taliban's disregard for human rights and the rule of law as demonstrated by their actions on taking power. One of the first acts of the Taliban upon seizing power was the execution of the former Communist President of Afghanistan, Mohammad Najibullah. Before the Taliban had even taken control of Afghanistan's capital they sent out a squad to arrest Najibullah. As Najibullah was staying in the United Nations compound in Kabul, this was a violation of international law. As a further example, the Taliban regime was also heavily criticised for the murder of Iranian diplomats in Afghanistan[25] in 1998. The Taliban supported the Islamic militants operating in Chechnya and Xinjiang, thus antagonizing Russia and the People's Republic of China simultaneously.

In 2013, the Taliban opened an office in Qatar[26] with the goal of beginning talks between themselves, the United States and the Islamic Republic of Afghanistan.[27] There was a conflict after the office raised the white flag of the former Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan, with U.S. Secretary of StateJohn Kerry saying that the office could be closed if there was not a "move forward" in peace negotiations.[28][29]

In 1999, Mullah Omar issued a decree protecting the Buddha statues at Bamyan, two 6th-century monumental statues of standing buddhas carved into the side of a cliff in the Bamyan valley in the Hazarajat region of central Afghanistan. He did this because Afghanistan had no Buddhists, so idolatry would not be a problem. But in March 2001, the statues were destroyed by the Taliban of Mullah Omar, following a decree stating: "all the statues around Afghanistan must be destroyed."[30] This prompted an international outcry from nations such as Japan, India, South Korea, Nepal, Iran, Qatar, and Russia. Even Saudi Arabia and the UAE, both of which were among only three nations to recognize the Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan, voiced their opposition. The Arab branch of UNESCO, a cultural and educational agency of the United Nations, labelled the destruction as "savage".[31][32]

On 15 October 1999, the UN Security Council established a sanctions regime to cover individuals and entities associated with Al-Qaeda, Osama bin Laden and/or the Taliban.[33] Since the U.S. Invasion of Afghanistan in 2001, the sanctions were applied to individuals and organizations in all parts of the world; also targeting former members of the Taliban government.

On January 27, 2010, a United Nations sanctions committee removed five former senior Taliban officials from this list, in a move favoured by Afghan President Karzai. The decision means the five will no longer be subject to an international travel ban, assets freeze and arms embargo. The five men, all high-ranking members of the Taliban government:

The Kabul money markets responded positively during the first weeks of the Taliban occupation. But the Afghani soon fell in value.[40] They imposed a 50% tax on any company operating in the country, and those who failed to pay were attacked.[41] They also imposed a 6% import tax on anything brought into the country,[42] and by 1998 had control of the major airports and border crossings which allowed them to establish a monopoly on all trade.[42] By 2001 the per capita income of the 25 million population was under $200,[43] and the country was close to total economic collapse.[44] As of 2007 the economy had begun to recover, with estimated foreign reserves of three billion dollars and a 13% increase in economic growth.[45]

Under the Transit treaty between Afghanistan and Pakistan a massive network for smuggling developed. It had an estimated turnover of 2.5 billion dollars with the Taliban receiving between $100 and $130 million per year.[46] These operations along with the trade from the Golden Crescent financed the war in Afghanistan and also had the side effect of destroying start up industries in Pakistan.[47]Ahmed Rashid also explained that the Afghan Transit Trade agreed on by Pakistan was "the largest official source of revenue for the Taliban."[48]

Between 1996 and 1999 Mullah Omar reversed his opinions on the drug trade, apparently as it only harmed kafirs. The Taliban controlled 96% of Afghanistan's poppy fields and made opium its largest source of taxation.[48] Taxes on opium exports became one of the mainstays of Taliban income and their war economy.[48] According to Rashid, "drug money funded the weapons, ammunition and fuel for the war."[48] In the New York Times, the Finance Minister of the United Front, Wahidullah Sabawoon, declared the Taliban had no annual budget but that they "appeared to spend US$300 million a year, nearly all of it on war." He added that the Taliban had come to increasingly rely on three sources of money: "poppy, the Pakistanis and bin Laden."[48]

In an economic sense it seems however he had little choice, as the war of attrition continued with the Northern Alliance the income from continued opium production was all that prevented the country from starvation.[49] By 2000 Afghanistan accounted for an estimated 75% of the world's supply and in 2000 grew an estimated 3276 tonnes of opium from poppy cultivation on 82,171 hectares.[50] At this juncture Omar passed a decree banning the cultivation of opium, and production dropped to an estimated 74 metric tonnes from poppy cultivation on 1,685 hectares.[51] Many observers say the ban - which came in a bid for international recognition at the United Nations - was only issued in order to raise opium prices and increase profit from the sale of large existing stockpiles.[48] The year 1999 had yielded a record crop and had been followed by a lower but still large 2000 harvest.[48] The trafficking of accumulated stocks by the Taliban continued in 2000 and 2001.[48] In 2002, the UN mentioned the "existence of significant stocks of opiated accumulated during previous years of bumper harvests."[48] In September 2001 – before the 11 September attacks against the United States – the Taliban allegedly authorized Afghan peasants to sow opium again.[48]

There was also an environmental toll to the country, heavy deforestation from the illegal trade in timber with hundreds of acres of pine and cedar forests in Kunar Province and Paktya being cleared.[52][53] Throughout the country millions of acres were denuded to supply timber to the Pakistani markets, with no attempt made at reforestation,[54] which has led to significant environmental damage.[55] By 2001, when the Afghan Interim Administration took power the country's infrastructure was in ruins, Telecommunications had failed, the road network was destroyed and Ministry of Finance buildings were in such a state of disrepair some were on the verge of collapse.[56] On July 6, 1999 former president Bill Clinton signed into effect executive order 13129. This order implemented a complete ban on any trade between America and the Taliban regime and on August 10 they froze £5000,000 in Ariana assets.[57] On December 19, 2000 UN resolution 1333 was passed. It called for all assets to be frozen and for all states to close any offices belonging to the Taliban. This included the offices of Ariana Afghan Airlines.[58] In 1999 the UN had passed resolution 1267 which had banned all international flights by Ariana apart from preapproved humanitarian missions.[59]

^Genocide, Ethnonationalism, and the United Nations: Exploring the Causes of Mass Killing Since 1945 by Hannibal Travis,pg.115 "The massacres in Mazar-i-Sharif alone in 1998 claimed 8,000-10,000 lives "